"Germany during the cold war" Topic

"In the aftermath of World War II, a conquered and devastated Germany became the first flashpoint in the cold war. At the Potsdam Conference in 1945, the victorious Allies had divided Germany into four occupation zones, and each zone was administered by one of the Allied military commands. The three Western zones, occupied by the United States, Britain, and France, coordinated their activities relatively closely, but a dangerous rift was developing between these Allies and the Soviets, who occupied eastern Germany. The former Nazi capital, Berlin, had also been divided among the Allies, but it lay deep within the Soviet zone. The Russians had pledged to allow the Western Allies to cross their territory to supply their enclave, West Berlin, but by 1948, tensions were at a boiling point.

As the Soviets tightened their grip on Eastern Europe, the Western Allies issued a shared currency for use in their zones, hoping to stabilize Germany's devastated economy. The move angered the Soviets, who responded by cutting off all surface traffic into West Berlin on June 27, 1948. Diplomatic entreaties had no effect, and the beleaguered people of West Berlin, cut off from shipments of food, fuel, and medicine, faced the grim prospect of starvation. The Western Allies immediately began preparing to supply the city through a massive airlift, in what would become the largest aerial supply operation in human history. Turning the massive air flotillas of World War II into a humanitarian relief force, American, British, and French pilots delivered more than 2 million tons of needed supplies. During a harsh German winter, which would have caused the death of thousands of West Berliners, the Allies flew more than 270,000 relief flights. The Soviet blockade was finally lifted on May 12, 1949, as the frustrated Red Army commanders realized that the Allies had the resources and resolve to supply the city indefinitely. The Berlin Airlift had demonstrated the growing animosity between East and West during the cold war and presaged the eventual triumph of the Western democracies in the ideological struggle. It would take another four decades, however, before a divided Germany was finally reunified.

The Potsdam Conference and Postwar Germany
In the aftermath of World War II, a shattered Germany was divided into a series of occupied zones by the victorious Allies. The four-way partition of Germany was carried out according to an agreement, reached in February 1945 at Yalta in the Soviet Union among the Allies, that gave the United States, Britain, the USSR, and France each an occupation zone to administer. Berlin, the fallen Nazi capital, was also partitioned by the four Allies and administered by a joint Allied council. Although it lay deep within the Soviet zone, Stalin promised to provide free access to the city to his wartime allies. These divisions became official on June 5, 1945. Having subdivided Germany, the Allies began the arduous process of feeding and housing the inhabitants of the ruined German nation. Hampering the Allies' efforts to provide housing, sustenance, and medical care for the German people, millions of ethnic German refugees poured into Germany from the east, expelled from their former homes in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Baltic countries. Meanwhile, millions of displaced persons, as well as former inmates of German forced labor camps and concentration camps, also had to be provided for by the Allies. Amid the chaos and dearth of the immediate postwar period, the population of Germany went hungry as the Allies worked to rebuild the country…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Superficial summary and inaccurate in places.

Also ignores the Soviets' initial offer for German reunification, which put the Allies in the difficult position of maintaining a divided Germany as policy. The Soviet attempts to combine the occupation zones to create a centralised and unified Germany would probably have meant a very different Germany today if successful.

That said, how about early Cold War scenarios with the Constabulary fighting the Soviets? Apparently they were issued horses along with jeeps, armored cars, and light tanks…

Quite interesting idea my friend.

Amicalement
Armand